Join us for a tour of the once-in-a-lifetime exhibit of Vincent Van Gogh led by Dr. Helga Kessler Aurisch on Thursday, April 18, 2019, at the Museum of Fine Arts Houston (MFAH).
Dr. Helga Kessler Aurisch, Curator of European Art at the MFAH, will lead us on one of her excellent tours at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, featuring “Vincent Van Gogh: His Life in Art.” The exhibit showcases key passages of the life of this well-known post-impressionist artist, offering “visitors a vivid portrait of Van Gogh’s evolution as an artist,” says MFAH Director Gary Tinterow – From early sketches to final portraits the exhibition shows more than 50 portraits, landscapes and still lifes lent by the Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam, and the Kröller Museum, Otterlo, as well as other public and private collections.
The exhibition – Vincent Van Gogh’s evolution as an artist
According to Martin Bailey, author of “Starry Night: Van Gogh at the Asylum” and co-curator of the current Van Gogh exhibition at Tate Britain, the Dutch post-impressionist “is an unusual combination of someone whose art has an instant appeal to people and a human interest story that is astonishing.” Therefore, unlike most of the other exhibitions of Van Gogh, “Ours is the only show that traces Van Gogh from his tentative beginnings in 1880, when he seriously decided to become an artist, to his extraordinary final works,” says David Bomford, head of European art at the MFAH and curator of the exhibition. He adds, “The change in confidence and in style is staggering — the speed with which he becomes a competent and then a brilliant draftsman in his Dutch period.”
The exhibition picks the visitor up at Van Gogh’s beginnings as an artist in the Dutch village of Nuenen where he lived from 1883 to 1885. Here he studied and recorded all aspects of peasant life: Amongst sketches of the day-to-day life of villagers, farm laborers and weavers. One of the artist’s early great masterpieces, “The Tower at Nuenen” (1885), represents his earlier works, as well as three of his studies for “The Potato Eaters” (1885). His idea however, to have his brother Theo sell his paintings on the art market in Paris and keep the proceeds in return for the allowance provided, did not work out as Van Gogh’s work was too dark in tone for French tastes.
After this rural experience, Van Gogh spent a short time in Antwerp in order to take drawing lessons which he considered far too traditional. He soon moved in with his brother Theo in Paris. Being introduced to colorful works by artists such as Claude Monet and interaction with a whole new generation of artists had a major influence on Van Gogh himself as well as his art. Not only did his work become brighter in color, but further he shifted his focus from rural laborers to cafés, boulevards amd floral still lifes. Moreover, he discovered a new source of inspiration: Japanese woodcuts whose influence is reflected in bold outlines, dramatic cropping and color contrasts. Highlight in the exhibition for this part of his life is a portrait of Agostina Segatori, owner of Café du Tambourin (a popular spot among Parisian artists), and Van Gogh’s lover.
After only two years in the city he set out to the south of France, longing to find a peaceful and colorful setting, not unlike the ones he admired in the Japanese landscapes. Settled in Arles and delighted with the bright light and colors in Arles, he developed his recognizable style: painting fields of wheat, vineyards and vibrant portraits, as well as his well-known Sunflowers paintings, by means of long, rhythmic brushstrokes, thick layers of paint, and brighter colors. His hope of establishing a community of like-minded artists working and living together, unfortunately, had a disastrous outcome. Even though the collaboration with Paul Gaugin resulted in some exceptional paintings, the night-long discussions and all-day painting sessions took their toll on Van Gogh’s mental health, leading to the incident in December 1889 when he sliced off his own ear lobe.
He received treatment and resumed painting, nonetheless, his health would continue to fluctuate, and he admitted himself to Saint-Paul-de-Mausole psychiatric asylum in Saint-Rémy in May 1889 where he was extremely productive, completing about 150 paintings within one year, as well as some of his most iconic masterworks, including “Starry Night” and “Irises.” Just one year after going into asylum, Van Gogh left for Auvers-sur-Oise. Here, under the care of doctor Paul Gachet, he spent his last weeks painting landscapes – one of these latest works shown in the exhibition, Ears of Wheat, was created in June 1890. However, uncertainty about the future and fear that his nervous attacks would return became too much, and on 27 July 1890 he shot himself in a wheat field, dying from his injuries only two days later.
The visitor to the exhibition can trace Van Gogh’s hopes of becoming a marketable painter in Paris, his desire to live among a community of artists, and his struggles with personal relationships and his mental health, not only through his art, but further by way of facsimiles of Van Gogh’s letters which are incorporated throughout the exhibition, providing a narrative of the artist’s life.
The exhibition has been organized in collaboration with the Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam, and the Kröller Museum, Otterlo, which together hold the largest collections in the world. It will be on view until June 28, 2019. For more information on the exhibit visit the website of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston at www.mfah.org.
Dr. Helga Kessler Aurisch
Dr. Helga Kessler Aurisch, who was born in Germany but moved to New York with her family when she was ten, is the Curator of European Art at the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston. She majored in art history at Smith College and pursued graduate studies at the University of Vienna in Austria, and the University of Freiburg in Germany. After receiving her M.A. and Ph.D. she began her career at the Costume Institute of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. In 2004 she joined the staff of the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, and brought numerous exhibitions to Houston, amongst them are The Masterpieces of French Painting, 1800 – 1920 and German Impressionist Landscape Painting: Liebermann – Corinth – Slevogt. She is widely published and a frequent lecturer on 19th century art.
Sources
Mercury Houston. https://www.mercuryhouston.org/helga-kessler-aurisch. 04/09/2019 4.30pm.
Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. https://www.mfah.org/press/van-gogh-survey-opens-at-mfah-march-2019. 04/09/2019 4.55pm.
New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/12/arts/van-gogh-exhibit.html?utm_source=MFAH&utm_medium=email. 04/09/2019 5.30pm.
Van Gogh Gallery. https://www.vangoghgallery.com/misc/biography.html. 04/09/2019 6.05pm.
Van Gogh Museum. https://www.vangoghmuseum.nl/en/vincent-van-gogh-life-and-work/van-goghs-life-1853-1890. 04/09/2019 6.25pm.